In Sweden, where 400+ days of parental leave has been mandatory for years organization have adapted and learned patterns and ways to deal with people dissappearing for around a year.
It’s a shame the Gates Foundation didn’t research this better before diving in.
Why don't people do this in Sweden? There are so few kids!
Even in the 1960s in the US, when the working class had much more economic security, and it was easier to financially support children than today, the median number of children per family was still < 3.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/718084/average-number-of...
I think the Swedish culture is also very practically minded. (Romance is dead!) Which means the practical drawbacks from having a big family (car size, expensive vacations etc) will weigh a lot.
That's absolutely true, but hopefully the government (or social security) pays for it. Same as for medical leave (in Slovenia, only after 30 days though - first month is paid by the employer). That way, the government is supporting entrepreneurship and small businesses, which would otherwise be disproportionally affected by a single person leaving (in a big company, the law of large numbers makes it easy to predict, and therefore manage, absences).
I am curious about:
* what percentage of parents take the full year or more of leave?
* how much of a salary reduction happens on leave?
* how much of the leave salary is paid directly by the employer versus by the government?
* does the year have to be taken consecutively, or can you break it up into chunks?
* what happens to the temporary employee once the parent is back from leave?
* if the parent has another child while on leave, can they extend leave by another year?